Welcome to the Texas Review and Texas Review Press

The Texas Review—Beginnings

The Texas Review, a biannual literary journal first published in 1976, was founded by Paul Ruffin as The Sam Houston Literary Review. When The Texas Quarterly folded at the University of Texas in 1979, Ruffin changed the name to The Texas Review.

Today, with a staff of highly qualified editors The Texas Review enjoys an international reputation, publishing quality poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and reviews from contributors across the globe.

The Beginnings of Texas Review Press

After changing the name of the journal to The Texas Review in 1979, Dr. Ruffin brought out the press’s first book, The Texas Anthology, a paperback collection of Texas poetry and photography. It was well received, so the press began publishing at least one thin book per year. This led to a long-running poetry chapbook series. As revenues increased, Texas Review Press began to publish longer books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction prose, and production steadily increased.

Joining the Texas A&M University Press Consortium

In 1997, Texas A&M University Press Consortium accepted TRP into the fold, where we joined Southern Methodist University Press, University of North Texas Press, The Texas State Historical Association, Texas Christian University Press, Baylor University Press, McWhiney Foundation Press, and Texas A&M University Press.

Today, thanks to support from the Sam Houston State University administration and the marvelous job that the TAMU Press Consortium does in featuring TRP books, our press is publishing between eighteen and twenty-four titles per year, including the winners of four international competitions and an annual Southern poetry anthology.

Staff of Texas Review Press:

Director: Dr. Paul Ruffin (deceased)

Sadly, we lost Dr. Ruffin in April of 2016. Paul Ruffin was a Texas State University System Regents’ Professor and Distinguished Professor of English at SHSU. He was the founding editor of The Texas Review and founder and director of Texas Review Press. He authored two novels, five collections of short fiction, four books of essays, seven collections of poetry, and he edited and co-edited dozens of other books.

Assistant to the Director: Kim Davis

First graduate of SHSU’s MFA in Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing, Kim Davis continues her managerial role at Texas Review Press and teaches English at SHSU.

Office Manager: Claude Wooley

For over fifteen years, Claude Wooley has kept the TRP office running, with a kind voice by phone and email for authors and book buyers alike. Claude handles mailings, promotions, and contest entries, among his many other administrative duties.

Interns: Elizabeth Evans, Savanah Burns, and Laura Brackin

This revolving cast of characters help with book production, proofreading, and whatever else Kim and Claude dream up for them to do. Their keen eyes, energy, and enthusiasm are invaluable.

The Editors of The Texas Review

Editor

Nick Lantz is the author of four books of poetry: We Don’t Know We Don’t Know (Graywolf Press), The Lightning That Strikes the Neighbors’ House (University of Wisconsin Press), How to Dance as the Roof Caves In (Graywolf Press), and You, Beast (University of Wisconsin Press). He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative writing. He teaches in MFA program in creative writing at Sam Houston State University.

Poetry Editor

Ching-In Chen is the author of The Heart's Traffic (Arktoi Books) and recombinant (forthcoming from Kelsey Street Press) as well as co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities (South End Press, AK Press). A Kundiman, Lambda, Callaloo and The Watering Hole Fellow, they are part of the Macondo and Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation writing communities. They have also been awarded fellowships from Can Serrat, Millay Colony for the Arts, the Norman Mailer Center and Imagining America. Their work has appeared in The Best American Experimental Writing, The &NOW Awards 3: The Best Innovative Writing, and Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics. They are a senior editor of The Conversant and poetry editor of Texas Review. They are currently teach creative writing and world literature at Sam Houston State University.

Fiction Editor

Olivia Clare is the author of a short story collection, Disasters in the First World, forthcoming in June 2017 from Grove Atlantic. She is currently working on a novel, also forthcoming from Grove Atlantic. She is the author of a book of poems, The 26-Hour Day (New Issues, 2015). Her awards include a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award (in fiction), the Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship from Colgate University (in poetry), a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and fellowships from the Tin House Writers’ Workshop, the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, and Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Her stories have appeared in TheO. Henry Prize Stories 2014, Granta, Southern Review, n+1, Boston Review, and elsewhere. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Southern Review, London Magazine, FIELD, and elsewhere. She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a master’s degree from the University of Southern California, and a PhD in Literature with Creative Dissertation from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she was a Black Mountain Institute Fellow. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at Sam Houston State University.

Fiction Editor

Scott Kaukonen is the author of the collection of stories, Ordination, which won the Ohio State Prize for Short Fiction, and was published by the Ohio State University Press. The collection includes the story, “Punnett’s Squares,” winner of the Nelson Algren Prize from the Chicago Tribune. He’s a past recipient of a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and he’s also received an AWP/Prague Summer Fellowship. His fiction has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Cincinnati Review, Pleiades, Barrelhouse, Normal School, Third Coast, and elsewhere. He directs the MFA program in creative writing, editing, and publishing at Sam Houston State University.

Nonfiction Editor

Amanda Nowlin is a prose writer whose work has appeared in Callaloo, Vandal, the anthology Literary Cash, and The Dallas Morning News, among others. She is a graduate of the University of Houston’s PhD program in Literature and Creative Writing where she was nonfiction editor at Gulf Coast. Amanda received her MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. Currently, she is the coordinator for the National Book Awards Festival at Sam Houston State University, where she also teaches.